Has new "Disable color subsampling" option under Settings-Images-Advanced. Will produce even better looking JPEGs when checked. Currently only applies to images with compression quality >= 90. Disabling chroma/color subsampling increases file size about 17% but doubles the horizontal and vertical color resolution of images. See this article

Explore mode adjusted for lower CPU usage = better performance

Now runs on Open Java 11 on all platforms. Earlier, the Mac version was using Oracle's Java 8 and Windows version using Java 9. With Java 11, Oracle's Java is under a commercial license. We therefore moved to the open source "Open JDK 11", which should be working as well by now.

Remembers width of folder property panel if "Remember last window position and size" is checked under Preferences

All versions has reduced footprint due to removal of unneeded Java code

jAlbum could hang when closing certain album projects that relies on the theme image selector

The embedded editor could hang if the printing system of the computer wasn't configured right

Fixes for compatibility with skins using the JSONMaker API

Released: 2018/06/11

16

News and Updates

New cleaner project file format. jAlbum's project control files are no longer scattered among your images but neatly tucked under hidden ".jalbum" folders. jAlbum will upgrade projects to new format automatically. (Use this conversion tool if you ever need to open projects in older versions of jAlbum)

Now allows any image file, (not just album objects) to be dropped onto the selectors of the folder property panel.

Broken folder links weren't showing in Explorer view making them hard to detect and repair

Various bug fixes to internal APIs

Released: 2018/05/03

15.4

News and Updates

The preview browser now runs in a separate window. (One can optionally switch it back to integrated/embedded mode). The advantages of using a separate window is that you can use a larger window for previews without having to expand the jAlbum window. You can also easily play with various screen sizes to better adapt galleries for various devices (see new "Responsive" button in preview browser's toolbar when running in windowed mode). The "Windowed" preview mode is more like using an external browser for previews, but with the advantages of responding better to skin, style and settings changes within jAlbum.

Main user interface updated to be more streamlined and intuitive: View mode buttons now left-aligned and community related buttons moved to the top-right corner.

Fixed incorrect thumbWidth and thumbHeight variables for representing folder thumbnails when image has been cropped

Fixed pricing link not showing when license missing and signed in

Fix for missing characters in some asian languages

Released: 2018/04/04

15.3.4

News and Updates

New user interface setting to generate JSON files no matter what skin is used (Settings-Advanced-Metadata). This setting has been added to support a new Wordpress integration we're about to release

jAlbum now has an improved "expression language" syntax enabling skin developers to use expressions like ${first|second|third} causing the first non-empty variable to be picked. This syntax also accepts default strings: ${aperture:"Missing aperture"}

Usability improvement: Added the default smart "Make Album" as the 1:st menu item of jAlbum's Make album context menu.

Updated bundled skins Tiger and PhotoBlogger

Updated Slovenian translation

Bug fixes

Fixed an issue with the representing thumbnail for folders having wrong "thumbWith" and "thumbHeight" variables if the target image is cropped in jAlbum, thereby distorting the aspect ratio of such thumbnails.

15.3

News and Updates

jAlbum's Explore view now allows ratings and flags to be set via context menu

Developers: new ja:iterator element that also iterates over hidden objects and custom pages, otherwise same behavior as ja:fileiterator

Folders may now have description text (set under folder properties) that differ from the folder comment. Skins can specify separateDescription=true in skin.properties to activate this

Engine now produces slide images for representing folder images as well and not just thumbnails

Updated Turkish and Finnish translations. Thank you dear translators.

Bug fixes

imagePath on index.htt would point to thumbnails instead of slide images

Fixed bug in print support (printing.inc)

Released: 2018/02/13

15.2

News and Updates

Introducing a new notion: Web directory. The Web directory is a global preference which can point out the root of a local web structure where to put album folders by default. jAlbum can now be instructed to either put new projects in an "album" sub folder of the project folder (still the default) or in a folder under the new web directory.

jAlbum's recent project list now finally displays the name of the project file instead of the containing folder's name if the project name isn't the default name (jalbum-settings.jap). This allows project files to be located under the same folder without ending up in a long list of the same folder name printed. Renaming an entry under "Recent projects" will rename the project file instead of renaming the project/image folder in case the project name isn't the default (jalbum-settings.jap). Use "File->Save project settings as" or Explorer/Finder to make the initial project name change.

If copying files where source file was missing, would delete destination file instead of signalling an error (since introduction of hard links)

Fixed rare nullpointer bug during album build

Released: 2017/12/19

15.1

News and Updates

Support for MPEG-4 audio file added (.m4a extension).

Internal music player updated to play both m4a, wav and mp3 files.

Defaults can now be stored and applied on a per-skin basis. See "File->Save as Skin Default"

Cut+Paste support added. This mimics the Cut+Paste behavior in Windows Explorer and facilitates moving album objects around. Just select some album objects to move, hit CMD/CTRL+X, go to the destination folder and location and hit CMD/CTRL+V to paste the objects. The objects will be pasted close to the mouse pointer location. This feature will probably be appreciated by those who organize huge albums and feel uneasy with dragging and dropping and the scrolling it usually involves.

Updated bundled Minimal and Tiger skins

Bug fixes

Fix to "directory already exists" error during ftp upload

IPTC keywords weren't imported properly if they were semicolon separated

Released: 2017/11/18

15

News and Updates

New 30 trial days for everyone! Free update for anyone having a current support and update plan or active Premium or Power subscription. Discounted updates for users with older licenses. (See status under Help->"About jAlbum" inside software or on your jalbum.net profile page.)

Windows users: Please uninstall your earlier version before installing jAlbum 15 and ensure that no "jAlbum" folder is left under "Program Files". Don't worry, your existing albums and settings won't be affected by this. If you later wish to revert to older versions, they can be found here.

Now offering four new extra high quality image scaling algorithms: "Blackman-Bessel", "Blackman-Sinc", "Lanczos" and "Mitchell". jAlbum's image scaling should now match the best alternatives in the industry. See Settings->Images. Credit to TwelveMonkeys for these.

Faster startup. Fonts are loaded on demand instead of preloaded during startup. This cuts startup time significantly on systems with many fonts installed.

Theme images may now be selected separately from representing folder images. (Updated Tiger skin demonstrates this, and more skins will follow)

The whole code base, including all extensions, refactored to use Java 8 features and more performant constructs. The result should be slight performance enhancements, including somewhat lower startup time

Easier to use backups: Now generates "lifeboat" file to album folder during Make album instead of during publishing (toggle under Preferences->Album). This enables users to retrieve backups from published albums even if they were uploaded with 3:rd party ftp tools.

Note: v15 will unfortunately need to initially reprocess all images when making album projects made with earlier jAlbum versions. From now on, further reprocessing should not be needed. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

News and Updates

New album object type: "Web locations". Web locations are objects that can refer to any web page, not just local ones. This opens for some really interesting new applications for jAlbum. See for example this album collecting popular TED talks on YouTube.

To add a "Web location" to your album, drop the web page onto jAlbum or select New page->Web location. Why not use this feature to make a master album out of existing albums?

"Skin family" mechanism allowing skins belonging to the same family to share the same project settings. This simplifies moving from one skin to another without having to re-enter the same settings. This applies when moving from Turtle to the new Tiger skin for instance. Just open an existing Turtle project and switch to Tiger, then make the album again. ("Skin family" is a skin property)

Developers: New "include" and "exclude" attribute to ja:fileiterator element allowing a comma separated list of categories to be included or excluded, for instance <ja:fileiterator exclude="folder, webLocation">

Fix for full screen bug (Went full screen sometimes even when it shouldn't)

The superimposed play icon for video thumbnails got smaller with HiDPI mode

Mac file chooser causing nullpointer exception for null directories

The Preview view mode didn't get activated when setting Image directory for an empty project

Released: 2016/11/24

13.7

News and Updates

jAlbum's user interface is now also available in a stylish dark theme ("Darcula" look and feel"). Select it from jAlbum Preferences. Note, only available for Pro and Power users.

Added support for HiDPI images in generated albums (see Settings->Images). This makes images look sharper on HiDPI screens such as modern mobile devices. Compare these normal-dpi and HiDPI albums

Album objects may now be copied and pasted. Even works between album projects

Updated user interface icons

Updated embedded Turtle skin

Bug fixes

Fixed issue preventing using symbolic links as album folder

Released: 2016/10/27

13.6

News and Updates

You can now drag and drop images and folders FROM jAlbum to other programs, just like you've been able to drag and drop TO jAlbum. This facilitates working with supporting programs like image editors and book making software.

New "batch make album tool" to facilitate the remaking of several album projects in one go

jAlbum's file organizing tools moved from View->Organize to the top menu bar (really not view options as they relocate files and folders)

Developers: jAlbum's template parser is now more strict, catching more syntactical errors

Developers: jAlbum's template parser now reports file and line number for errors to assist in debugging

jAlbum's Print plugin improved and embedded into jAlbum. It's thereby available under File->Print as well as on the context menu. The Print feature can now also print image dimensions.

Slight performance enhancement to template parser

Bundled skins Turtle and Photoblogger updated

Developers: You can now use Icons.get() to read SVG icons for your skins

Now using HiDPI (retina) icons for the buttons of the video player user interface too

Updated translations. Thank you dear translators

Developers: JSON data now includes "thumb" node for root folder too, making finding the representing thumbnail for an album easier.

Bug fixes

jAlbum would not always suggest a sub folder to upload to when uploading to one's own ftp server

Released: 2016/08/26

13.4

News and Updates

Skins can now be developed using web technologies only (html+css+javascript). See MinimalWeb skin. No need for any Java or BeanShell knowledge in order to create the settings user interface of a skin. Just add a "ui.html" file to the skin's folder and jAlbum will pick up the named variables from the html form of that html file.

Skin developers may now also use JavaFX technology to design skin user interfaces with minimum coding efforts using Scene Builder. See MinimalFX skin. The visual layout is stored in a FXML file ("ui.fxml"). The needed logic can be added in JavaScript using an "onload.js" file.

External tools can now be written in any language supported by the underlying Java engine, for instance JavaScript. (Use ".js" file extension)

The embedded video editor now also supports .mov containers as well as .mp4

The ordering of files is now unaffected when adding files by drag and drop (was earlier automatically set to "custom")

Holding down SHIFT or ALT while accessing View->Update will also cause thumbnail cache to be cleared

Added contextual menus to caption editor for jAlbum's Explore view

Updated French and German languages. Thank you dear translators

Bundled with updated Java 8 (1.8.0_102)

Bug fixes

Fixed bug in the Publish window causing the parent folder of a deleted child object to not be selected

The percentage indicator when processing clipped/truncated videos was incorrect

Released: 2016/07/05

13.3

News and Updates

New embedded video player and improved video editor, just double click .mp4 videos to launch it.

Added "digitizedDate" variable

One can now use the right mouse button while editing captions, titles and filenames to get a popup context menu

Bug fixes

Fixed startup error preventing start of jAlbum when certain kind of data was present on the clipboard

Released: 2016/05/18

13.2

News and Updates

Multiple files and folders can now be renamed in one go. (Select target album objects, right click and select "Rename N items")

Stability rewrites to upload handler

Hovering the mouse over album objects now presents a "More" button that presents available options, instead of presenting the Edit option. Double click images to quickly edit them. (This change was made to make novice users aware of context menus)

More operations are now made undoable

Updated Turtle and Minimal skins

Bundled with updated 64 bit Java engine (1.8.0_92-b14)

Bug fixes

Fix to hanging when aborting ftp connect attempts

jAlbum would halt on processing RAW files if "Include metadata in generated images" was checked

"Repair link" didn't allow repairing broken folder links

Some portrait oriented Nikon RAW images were incorrectly stretched

Some JPEG images had their colors distorted to cyan-magenta hues. This applied to JPEG images using a RGB color space instead of a YCbCr color space (Note: Don't confuse this with color profiles)

"Repair link" didn't position the file chooser in the nearest existing target folder

The representing folder thumbnail wasn't updated when adding or removing files from within it

13.1

News and Updates

Icons are rendered in hiDPI on retina displays (vector based instead of bitmap based)

Mac version now plays mp4 videos from the embedded browser too

Updated skins, and bundled with recently released Responsive skin

Videos now have the well known "Play" icon superimposed on thumbnails to simplify locating videos among images instead of the smaller "film strip" icon.

Improved error reporting for fatal errors

All installers (including Linux) are now bundled with latest Java 8 (1.8.0_u74)

The space key now serves as shortcut to open the currently selected image in full screen review mode

Developers: Added "widgetJavaScript" variable to enable widget support in skins that rely on JavaScript instead of iframe for embedding

The progress dialog shown during album making is now resizable

Bug fixes

Skin loading could crash with a ClassNotFound exception

The text filter and Text effect did not accept the $ sign (was reserved for marking variables only)

jAlbum would freeze if trying to move a linked folder to within itself

Changes made to variables during album making was not always respected

Videos flagged with "Do not re-encode" would end up in the root of the album folder instead of under "slides"

Videos marked with "Do not re-encode" were missing the videoWidth and videoHeight variables

jAlbum would crash when previewing albums on some computers (bug in earlier embedded Java)

Some languages did not have the "undo"/"redo" words translated

Released: 2015/10/28

13

News and Updates

jAlbum 13 comes with a new free 30 day trial for all users! Free update for all who have an active support & update plan. (Install next to existing version to safely evaluate the improvements). Read blog post for licensing and update terms.

The embedded browser didn't work on Windows 10

Support for collaborative albums (albums where several people contribute with images). Have images mailed to username@jalbum.net automatically appear in collaborative album projects. Read more!

Organize your images easily in folders based on camera date, place etc. Have duplicates deleted. See View->Organize. Read more!